15. The following day

The following day Liyan went with Elle to the shed.

Walking past the mare, Elle talked of the weather and patted her neck.

- "She's filthy!" Liyan commented.

The old poney rolled his eyes and shook his head nastily. He was jalous and quarrelsome. Jim was telling how he already had sent the little girls flying off his back and how they didn't want to go horse riding anymore.

The mare, on the other hand, was an old roader from the time when you worked the sheep on horse back. Not so long ago really. Now Jim swore by his bike, a four wheel drive and machine of all trade. On horse back you needed three days to ride the boundaries. With a bike, one afternoon.

At the shed the shorn sheep were waiting jam packed in the pens.

Elle had decreed that a good shepherdess leads her sheep from in front. Jim had not insisted on the method. He trusted her, giving her orders to send back the sheep from a pen back to a given paddock. Elle was doing her shepherd's job with pleasure, opening gates, closing gates and walking in front of her flock of shorn ewes. Once this lot sent off she'd come back to the shed for another lot.

Jim was giving a hand up in the shed to close the wool bails.

He shouted to Elle to let ewes still to be shorn come up. She would go under the floor boards, would open the pen gates, shout yo-o-o's while gesticulating to make the ewes walk up a slippery passage. Once, she appeared up there behind the ewes, climbing over the pen's partitions and coming out at the door where the shearers took the animals to be done. Her appearance there had its effect. She could read a certain respect in the shearers' eyes. "Not scared of the shit, hey?!" seemed to be the message.

At smoko they had a mug of tea with milk and a piece of cake, lounging on the wool bails that were piling up.